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| Home Front: Politix |
| Hollywood Straw Poll For Obama? |
| 2007-12-15 |
| Some amazing numbers were posted Friday for this weekend's movie releases. Warner Bros' I Am Legend opens closer to $80 million than the studio's hoped-for $50 million from Friday through Sunday after making a whopping $29.6 million Friday in 3,606 theaters. This more than demonstrates that Will Smith is now the biggest U.S. box office stud bar none and breaks his previous opening record (I Robot's $62 mil in summer). This also will easily be the biggest December movie opening ever... ...I won't have exit polling until tomorrow, but Smith is one of the few, if not only, Hollywood stars right now who tracks extremely well with both African-American and Hispanic audiences as well as whites. That accounts for why I Am Legend's numbers went through the roof even though its "last man on earth who's not alone" subject matter is a downer. "But put Will Smith into it, and it really changes the equation," a Warner Bros source told me. "It's definitely tracking four quadrant." I'm told the movie played broadly -- almost equally male/female, under age 25/over 25, ethnic/non-ethnic -- and playability was strong with all audiences being at or above the norms with males slightly stronger than females. That was evident even going into Friday, I was told, when the PG-13 thriller had definite interest among young males (74%), older males (67%), young females (56%) and older females (49%). The only question now is whether the East Coast storms will affect Saturday and Sunday turnout there, prompting one Warner exec to rue not having a degree in meteorology... This was immediately compared to the publics willingness to accept a "polite and erudite" successful black man as a presidential candidate, and it is a comparison that will not be lost on Hillary's campaign. In fact, they should be shaking in their boots. |
| Posted by:Anonymoose |